Chapter Text
“All the good gay books are too sad,” I said, taking off my headphones and turning to face my friend, Jordan Hayes. She towered almost two feet above me, and I was already taller than most of the girls in school. “At least I have an excuse,” I sometimes thought and even said out loud once, but I was never trying to be mean. Today being Tuesday, she was clad in a dress shirt and nice jeans for the debate club, while I sported a black skirt with a grey shirt that read “4 out of 5 dentists wanna kiss me” in a rainbow font. A black hooded denim jacket covered in iron-on patches adorned me, with the most conspicuous one being a “hello, my name is” sticker. The name section was filled with “she/her pronouns please,” surrounded by roses.
“Just once, I wanna read about a lesbian couple where they meet, get together, and there’s no pointless ‘oh, I can’t be with you, our love is wrong,’ breakup halfway through.” She rolled her eyes, saying, “There are plenty of books like that; you just won’t look because deep down, you like reading about them getting back together and imagining someone liking you that much.”
“Whatever, man,” I said, glad we were almost at the library so I didn’t have to admit she was right. I had Dungeons and Dragons club on Tuesdays, so when we got to the library, we said our goodbyes and split up.
I was still an hour early, so thinking about my complaint, I decided to see what the school library had. To my surprise, the school had a small LGBTQI section. It wasn’t a super religious school, but it was the kind of school that got rid of gender-neutral restrooms because of ‘graffiti.’ I had been in there just before school let out for the weekend, and there was just a pretty small work, not even transphobic or anything; it just said “this school blows.” But, of course, we can’t have nice things, so come Monday, those restrooms are “under repair” and stay that way until after we get back from spring break; by then, they were normal male and female bathrooms again.
I was thinking about this while browsing when a girl came up behind me and held out a book. “Here,” she said, “I just finished this one; it’s pretty good.” After taking a second or 30 to convince myself she was talking to me (she was way out of my league, and my type, only about half a foot shorter than me with short dark brown hair and glasses), and while anyone who called her fat would certainly have unrealistic standards, she also wasn’t what one could call thin. I thought she looked like a pillow like she’d be good at cuddling.
I blushed from my fantasy as I took the book and turned it over to read the summary. “How sad is it?” I asked. She frowned cutely and paused as she thought. “Eh, kinda? There is one point with a flashback, but it’s only two paragraphs.”
Only then did I finally recognize her. “Cate?!” I asked a little too loud. The uptight girl I had English class with shushed me from one of the comfortable studying chairs. I tried again, quieter this time. “Cate? From drama class, right?”
“Yeah!” she said excitedly. English class girl didn’t shush her, even though she was louder than I was; double standards. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t recognize me,” she said, leaning towards me with mock sadness.
“Are you kidding? How could I forget the best actor in class?” She blushed and shoved me playfully. “You’re just saying that.”
“No way,” I said. “You carried me when I forgot my lines in that group scene last week.” She laughed; she had an amazing laugh. It made me laugh too. After we stopped laughing, I nervously asked for her number, and since today was just full of surprises, she said yes. As she was entering it into my phone, she said, “We really should've done this when we had that group scene together; we could’ve used the extra rehearsal time.”
“Well, I could’ve; you were way better than me.”
“So why didn’t you?” She wasn’t looking me in the eyes anymore; her gaze had dropped to the floor, and she was blushing. “I was worried if I had your number, I’d be more likely to do something stupid,” I said, matching her redness.
“Like me?” she asked, looking as surprised as I was that it had left her mouth. We both just stood there for a minute until eventually, I managed to ask, “So that new horror movie everyone’s been talking about opens this Friday. Do you wanna maybe go see it? With me?”
She looked up at me and beamed; she did have an amazing smile. Then, she hugged me surprisingly hard and said, “Yes, yes, a million times yes!” Then she let go and backed up, blushing and staring at the floor again. “You did mean like as a date, right?” I smiled and said yes as the rest of the Dungeons and Dragons kids streamed in. She smiled back and walked off with a bounce in her step, and I took my seat at our campaign’s table, still grinning like a madwoman.